The Hive review.
Calling The Hive a home invasion movie is an oversimplification. There is a grander design at play that allows the second act of the movie to play with the concept.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Hive
Directed by Jared Allmond
Written by Jared Allmond
Starring Timothy Haug, Christine Griffin, Miles Taber, Julianne Ruck, Whitney Read, Elizabeth Schembre and Mark Ruck
The Hive Review
The best choice an independent horror movie (any genre really) can make is to have a script they can pull off. Movies need big ideas…not big budgets. If you can’t pull off your concept…you have the wrong concept. The Hive has the right concept. It takes a good idea that it can film through performance and story and doesn’t get in the way with things that it can’t do. No bad effects to take you out of the movie. No wild action scenes that have to be edited to barely work. A good idea…allowed to play itself out.
Albie (Timothy Haug) and Penny (Christie Griffin) have it all. A beautiful home, a night away from their children…and a growing resentment for each other. After a night in town, they return home to find a couple inside of their house. The strange man (Miles Taber) and woman (Julianne Ruck) are strangely pleasant about the whole ordeal…claiming that Albie and Penny are confused. Even their neighbor Mark (Mark Norwood) doesn’t seem to recognize them. Their night is about to get a lot stranger.
The people we see breaking into a house in The Hive aren’t the strange couple…it’s Albie and Penny. They’re breaking into their own home…sure…but that’s what makes it such a fun idea. Instead of the standard “family in peril from an outside force” …The Hive presents a fresh angle. Who are these people? What are they doing in our house? Why are they so darn polite about it? Albie and Penny are thrown for a loop. Having only recently moved into the neighborhood…they don’t have many places to turn.
They call the police immediately…as one would do. The cops are strangely uninterested in their story…instead siding with the strange man now occupying their residence. The strange man has a badge and gun of his own…is this all a conspiracy? What would the police want with their new house? The Hive leaves you guessing for a while. It has an answer to every question it poses…so don’t worry about being left scratching your head. Again…it’s interested in executing a story that it can tell in full. Not gaining points for things you might find interesting without explanation. Ultimately, that path will leave you frustrated.
The Hive takes its interesting idea and expands on it in a natural way. Albie and Penny head to her sister’s house to try and sort out their situation. Kimmy (Whitney Reade) is an oddly agreeable and happy sort. It stands in contrast to the person Albie describes before they arrive. She suggests that the couple return to their house and find out what the intruders are doing there. They must be looking for something in the home, after all. Albie is all for the idea…but Penny only goes along begrudgingly.
The couple’s inability to get on the same page forms a b-story for The Hive. Stakes are much higher than your usual marital dispute, obviously. But there is a realistic feeling presented by their divide. It helps the odd cheeriness of the strange people in their house stand out. The things they argue about juxtapose the strange couple’s search for…well…it gets weird. Asking questions that make no sense…employing interrogation techniques that are at turns pleasant and violent… The question soon becomes less what are these people doing in our house…and more what in the world have we come home to?
The Hive allows the story to unfold at a fine pace. The strange moments have time to linger but the story never loses steam. The committedly awkward performances of Taber and Ruck play off the confused realistic portrayals from Haug and Griffin. We know something isn’t right…we probably even know what before it’s all revealed…but The Hive has fun getting there. It does so by turning conventional moves upside down. The intruders are already here. The information they want doesn’t make any sense. Can someone please stop smiling already?
Despite the strange tones and odd moves that the movie makes along the way…The Hive knows exactly where it’s going. Everything has a purpose. The nonsensical questions…the odd demeanors…unhelpful neighbors and cops…Albie and Penny’s arguments. Everything that happens matters. It’s going to tell the story it wants to and weave it all into a chilling final idea. Something that more independent movies should aspire to.
Scare Value
The Hive has some good ideas that turn the standard home invasion story on its head. Instead of being intruded upon…Albie and Penny find themselves strangers in their own home. It’s a fresh angle on normally well-worn material. A solid b-story concerning their marital strife leads to a satisfying payoff when the dust settles.
3/5
